The environmental impact of war
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* Jennifer Leaning

By nature of its focus, a review of the most serious recent impacts of war on environment and health will deal with a very particular set of concerns. Many of the worst atrocities of recent wars have not been associated with specific environmental effects or specific environmental causes. Hence the topics I covered in my article did not include gross human rights abuses or violations of international law (such as torture, rape and mass killing of civilians, or even genocide) where environmental destruction was not also at issue.1

A review of the impacts of war on environment and health must cross all political boundaries to follow environmental consequences rather than seek ideological motivation. During World War II, the death toll and physical damage resulting from aerial bombardment in urban areas were on a scale of magnitude greater for bombardments launched by the Allied forces than for those launched by other forces. In my article I sought to search for greatest impact, not to assign blame.

Finally a review of the recent impacts of war on environment and health must work with the evidence that has been compiled. Countries that have more open political systems and more competent record keeping and that offer greater latitude to diligent investigators will have more information available about the environmental effects of their military production and testing enterprise. In my article I pointed out that the effects I cited are about the United States because we know more about the US system than the Soviet one.

I wrote my review for a medical and public health audience, for whom issues are traditionally raised in terms of available data on health impacts rather than analyzed in terms of political alignments or lingering nation-state enmities. I could certainly have written the article with greater attention to these sensitivities but I thought that not only unnecessary but significantly off the point. In my view, the readers of *CMAJ*, and health professionals everywhere, must face the fact that even the countries they love and would fight for have contributed mightily to the environmental calamities we all must now address.

## Reference

1.  1. Leaning J. Environment and health: 5. Impact of war. CMAJ 2000;163(9):1157-61.
    
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